Free Six for Gold by Mary Reed, Eric Mayer

did you drag him out of?”
    “In Constantinople they starve their Lord Chamberlains and dress them in rags, didn’t you know?”
    “What is this most urgent problem, highness?” asked John.
    “A most intimate matter, Lord Chamberlain. It concerns the emperor’s heir. I wish you to arrange for the child to be presented to the court with appropriate ceremony.”
    “Heir? But surely everyone knows there can be no heir?”
    Cornelia gave John an exaggerated scowl. “I do not understand your meaning. Make yourself clearer immediately.”
    “Highness, everyone knows the emperor is not a man, but a faceless demon and therefore incapable of siring children in the usual fashion.”
    “True,” Cornelia purred, giving the obelisk a tickle, “but I am an unusual woman. Servant, bring the imperial infant here at once.”
    Peter bowed and presented his satchel to Cornelia. She pulled out a diminutive figure wrapped in what might have been swaddling clothes, but when she held it aloft the withered, whiskered face of Cheops the mummified cat glared reproachfully at the audience.
    The first coins landed beside John’s boots.

Chapter Twelve
    Anatolius stopped halfway up the steep incline. He bent over and stood, staring down at his boots and catching his breath. His destination, the house of Senator Symacchus, sat atop the ridge overlooking the Golden Horn. It was all but invisible from below, hidden by apartment buildings, warehouses, workshops, and bakeries piled in a jumble of brick and mortar along the hillside.
    After his heart stopped pounding, Anatolius took a deep inhalation and continued the climb. He cut from one precipitous street to another, navigating by the only part of the senator’s dwelling he could see—the monumental rooftop cross that towered above everything else.
    Except for this ostentatious declaration of religious belief, the late senator’s home turned out to be as modest as many of its neighbors. The unremarkable brick facade offered no clue to the high status of its departed owner.
    At Anatolius’ rap, the sturdy door opened a crack.
    “Can I help you, sir?” A wan face peeped out.
    “I’ve come from the palace on a matter of business.”
    There was movement behind the narrow gap, a chain rattled, and the door swung open. “If you have an appointment with the senator, I fear he will not be able to see you.” The deep voice didn’t match the young man’s slight frame.
    “I’m aware of your master’s tragic passing. I’m investigating the matter.”
    The young man gestured Anatolius into a long, dim vestibule and shut the door. “From the palace, sir? For a heartbeat I was afraid…but never mind. One has to be very careful these days, and of course with the senator so recently departed…”
    The servant’s boyish face was exceptionally pale and framed by long fair curls. He looked familiar but Anatolius couldn’t recall any previous meeting.
    “I will be reporting to the captain of the excubitors,” Anatolius said, truthfully. “I wish to ask the servants a few questions, in case they can shed light on this recent tragedy. And you are…?”
    “My name is Diomedes. As to whether I can help, I will try, but I was merely the senator’s reader.”
    Diomedes led the way into the atrium. The spotless black and white floor echoed similar tiles lining the ornamental pool gracing the airy space. A cross hung on a whitewashed wall, while an alabaster statuette of a crocodile displayed on a pedestal looked strangely at odds with the general impression of stark Christianity.
    Light spilled down from the compluvium and through the open entrance to an inner garden, visible beyond an austere office.
    The light accentuated the heavy powder on the young man’s face. Anatolius now remembered where he’d seen the servant before. It was in the halls of the Great Palace a few years earlier, among the band of similarly made-up and ubiquitous court pages.
    Now, however, Diomedes was too old to